Editor's note: This is the second in a four-part series highlighting the local entities that will benefit from this year's Estes Park United Campaign.

Estes Park Kids Café is one of four local youth oriented nonprofits set to receive funds from this year's Estes Park United fund-raising campaign.

Led by community volunteers and administered by United Way of Larimer County. The goal of the campaign is to raise $20,000 by Sept. 30, 2014 to invest in local nonprofit programs focused on helping local children succeed.

Since 2005, the Food Bank for Larimer County's Kids Cafe program has served free, nutritious meals to low-income children ages 3-18 after school and during the summer. The Estes Park program was started four years ago.

With two full-time kitchen staff and a registered dietician, the focus of the Kids Cafe team is on nutrition. Each Kids Cafe meal meets, or exceeds, USDA guidelines and is prepared fresh in the Kids Cafe kitchen by volunteers under the supervision of Food Bank staff. Menu items are kid tested, great tasting and nutritious.

"The United Way donation helps fund a program that meets a need in Estes Park that many folks don't know about," said Bruce Wallace, programs director, Food Bank for Larimer County.

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Wallace explained that 400 students in the Park School District qualify for free and reduced lunch during the school year; these families qualify because their annual income is 185 percent or less of the federally set annual poverty number.

"When school gets out for the summer, this places a new financial burden on these families as they absorb a new food cost for 10 weeks," said Wallace. "The kids potentially don't get all the meals per day they were used to or the nutrition content drops drastically or both.

"With the support of our wonderful group of retired Estes Park teachers (who started this program four years ago with us); and the local volunteers; and the new pilot partnership of the Boys and Girls Club of Larimer County; and the Estes Park Elementary School; and the local funding to provide this USDA program here's our June number's:

• Served 508 breakfasts and 1,175 lunches (all scratch cooked by our on-site cook; exceeding nutritional requirements of USDA and Nat'l School Lunch guidelines). This exceeds the total number of meals we served for the entire summer last year.

"Specifically, the United Way donation covers wages for our cook (a local) and admin. folks like me, marketing the program, and a portion of the food and supply cost," said Wallace.

Breakfast provided by the Larimer County Food Bank program Kids Cafe is served in the Estes Park Elementary school's cafeteria from 8:30to 9 a.m. and lunch is served from 12 to 12:30 p.m.

Donors can contribute to the campaign online at www.EstesParkUnited.org or send donations to PO Box 2651, Estes Park, CO, 80517.

For more information about Estes Park United, contact Scott Sprague with United Way of Larimer County at 970-407-7000.

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